Another day on the road. We've have been at this a few weeks and have developed a routine of getting set to go. Ken takes care of stowing anything that we have outside (chairs, firewood, clothesline, etc.) and disconnecting any utilities that we have been using, or dealing with the generator. I get the inside of the camper situated, do any dishes, straighten up and stow everything away so it doesn't move when we are towing the camper. With coffee we finds it is usually about 1 1/2 hours without being overly rushed.

We drove North, through the Lake Louise area. The Highway is known as the Icefields Parkway. It runs in a valley between the most awesome spine of the Rocky Mountains. We saw glaciers when we were at Glacier National Park in Montana but nothing like this. These glaciers are larger in size, there are more of them and somehow the mountains look more rugged. The weather was partly cloudy - when the sun was shining at the right angle on some of these glaciers it was incredible.

There were turnouts for viewing and quite a few had hikes that you could from them. My knee really screaming at me from the very uphill climb at Lake Louise however and we stayed closed to the turnouts. We did take one of the shorter trails back to a glacier lake, I was a complete idiot and did not take a picture of the sign (this is how I remember where we stopped) - I really think it is Mistaya Canyon - as all the glacier lakes this one is a color blue I wish I could describe in words - I want a crayon in that color.

A little more than half way to Jasper we stopped at the Icefield Centre. This is where Banff National Park turns into Jasper National Park. The largest of the glaciers is there, People can pay and go on a snocoach, a bus finned with treads and go up on the glacier, or you can hike out there, or if you really feel peppy, they say crazy people scale the mountains everyday (climbing).

Back in the car we stopped for a bite to eat at a turnout overlooking a pretty river. We didn't stop again until we came across a traffic stopping bear. He was just out for a snack, he was next to the road flipping rocks and did not care at all that 12 cars had stopped to take his picture.

We did not get into the full service campground that we had picked out, it had like 200 sites with electricity but they were full, and so were the other like 500 primitive sites (there are a lot of folks out, but I have never really had the sence of being crowded anywhere). We went back a little south and found a nice primitive campground with not to many neighbors on the Athabasca River. Had a nice walk by the river after dinner.